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After former White House official Lewis Libby’s indictment (see October 28, 2005), he retains the services of three of Washington’s most powerful attorneys: Theodore Wells, William Jeffress, and John Cline. [Boston Globe, 2/26/2006] (Cline will not officially join the defense team until mid-November.) [San Francisco Chronicle, 11/22/2005] Wells, who has successfully defended other government officials from criminal charges, is “an excellent choice,” according to criminal defense attorney Jeralyn Merritt. Jeffress is a partner at Baker Botts, the law firm headed by former Secretary of State James Baker. [Jeralyn Merritt, 11/3/2005] Cline is an expert on classified government documents; according to former CIA case officer Valerie Plame Wilson, he is “presumably hired to help the defense figure out how to ‘graymail’ the government, that is, force the government to choose between prosecuting an employee for serious crimes or preserving national security secrets.” Stanford University criminal law expert Robert Weisberg says of Cline’s addition to the team: “This is about as subtle as a sledgehammer to the government. This suggests they are going to use a very concerted and aggressive strategy.” Legal Defense Fund Headed by GOP Fundraiser - Shortly after the indictment, Libby’s legal defense fund is created, headed by former GOP finance chief Melvin Sembler, a Florida real estate tycoon. Sembler is a highly successful fundraiser for Republican candidates, and is a close friend of Vice President Dick Cheney. Lobbyist and former Justice Department spokeswoman Barbara Comstock, a close friend of Libby’s, recruited Sembler to head the fund. According to Comstock, Sembler “holds Scooter [Libby] in high esteem as many members of the committee have. We’re confident that Scooter will be exonerated. He has declared he’s innocent.” [Tampa Tribune, 11/24/2005] In her 2007 book Fair Game, Plame Wilson will note, “Sembler, ironically enough, was President George W. Bush’s ambassador to Italy when the embassy in Rome first received the forged yellowcake documents, whose contents precipitated [Joseph Wilson]‘s trip to Niger and Libby’s legal odyssey.” [Wilson, 2007, pp. 289-290] The first contribution to the defense fund comes from Richard Carlson, a former US ambassador, the former president of the Corporation of Public Broadcasting, and the father of conservative pundit Tucker Carlson. “He spent years in government service,” Carlson will later say of Libby, whom Carlson calls a friend. He “hasn’t made a lot of dough.” The fund will soon raise over $2 million, in part through a Web site, scooterlibby.com (see February 21, 2006). Comstock and former Cheney communications director Mary Matalin (see July 10, 2003 and January 23, 2004) are deeply involved in the fund. The fund’s board of directors and advisers is studded with prominent Republicans, including former Republican presidential candidates Steve Forbes and Jack Kemp; former senator, lobbyist, and actor Fred Thompson; former senator Alan Simpson; former Education Secretary William Bennett; Princeton professor Bernard Lewis, one of the driving intellectual forces behind the invasion and occupation of Iraq; former UN ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick; former Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham; former Clinton Middle East envoy Dennis Ross; and former CIA Director James Woolsey, another neoconservative ally of Libby’s. [New York Times, 11/18/2005; San Francisco Chronicle, 11/22/2005; Boston Globe, 2/26/2006] Howard Leach and Wayne Berman, two top fundraisers for the 2004 Bush-Cheney presidential campaign, are also part of the defense fund. Comstock tells a New York Times reporter that because both Ross and Woolsey served in the Clinton administration, the Libby defense fund is a bipartisan entity. She adds that the amount of money raised by the fund will not be disclosed: “It’s a private trust fund for a private individual and we haven’t disclosed that.” [New York Times, 11/18/2005; Tampa Tribune, 11/24/2005]Plame Wilson Disappointed in Woolsey's Involvement - Plame Wilson will write of her disappointment that a former CIA director (Woolsey) could come to the defense of someone accused of outing a covert CIA agent. [Wilson, 2007, pp. 289-290]

Web site header graphic for the Libby Legal Defense Trust’s site, reduced in size. [Source: Libby Legal Defense Trust] (click image to enlarge)Conservative media outlets such as the Web site Human Events announce the launch of scooterlibby.com, a Web site that coordinates and markets the fundraising efforts of the Lewis Libby defense fund (see After October 28, 2005). (The site also operates under the URL scooterlibby.org.) The chairman of the Libby Legal Defense Trust, Republican fundraiser and former ambassador Mel Sembler, writes on the front page of the site: “Since September 11, 2001, Lewis ‘Scooter’ Libby has been one of the unsung heroes in fighting the war on terror, working diligently and making countless contributions on some of the most critical life and death issues that our country has faced. For the past five years, Scooter Libby served selflessly as an assistant to President Bush and as the chief of staff and national security adviser to Vice President Cheney. But Scooter’s great service to our country has now been cut short, and his good name attacked. A distinguished group of friends, business leaders, and former government officials have joined the Libby Legal Defense Trust to help Scooter defray his legal costs from the recent charges. We hope you will join us in supporting this effort.” The site features an endorsement from Dick Cheney calling Libby “one of the most capable and talented individuals I have ever known.” [Human Events, 2/21/2006; Jeralyn Merritt, 2/21/2006; Libby Legal Defense Trust, 2/21/2006] Sembler says the group wants to raise $5 million for Libby’s defense. The group, staffed with veteran fundraisers who worked for the 2004 Bush-Cheney re-election campaign and other high-profile Republican campaigns, is believed to have raised almost half of that amount already. [Washington Post, 2/22/2006] In upcoming days, Slate editor John Dickerson will publish an analysis of the site’s efforts, calling it an attempt to “humanize” Libby and portray him as a selfless, innocent victim of government persecution (see February 27, 2006).

The New York Sun prints an editorial supporting the motion by Lewis Libby to dismiss all charges against him (see February 23, 2006). The Sun agrees with the defense lawyers’ argument that special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald was appointed illictly by the Department of Justice, and calls him “an illegal, extra-constitutional prosecutor.” The Sun cites a statement made by Alexander Hamilton in the Federalist Papers, and a letter written by Roger Sherman, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, opposing the power of the executive branch to appoint officials without Congressional approval. Fitzgerald operates “unchecked,” the Sun states, and entirely outside the law. The Sun also renews its call (see December 8, 2005) for its readers to donate to the Libby defense fund (see February 21, 2006). [New York Sun, 2/24/2006]

Slate editor John Dickerson, who played a small role in the Valerie Plame Wilson identity leak (see February 7, 2006), writes about the recently launched Lewis Libby defense fund’s Web site created to help raise money for Libby’s defense (see After October 28, 2005 and February 21, 2006). Far from looking like the Web site of an indicted criminal, Dickerson writes, the site’s design makes it seem as if Libby is running for elected office. He is shown with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, while “[o]ther snapshots portray him in soft focus and at oblique angles, the kinds of images candidates use to make themselves look more huggable. Fortunately, Libby’s Web designers didn’t stoop to showing him with dogs and children.” The 'Soft Sell' - Dickerson says the site is attempting to portray Libby to the American people as a likeable, honest person whose years of public service have left him open to unfair and unwarranted criminal charges. The site claims that Libby has virtually no money with which to fight those charges, and is basically relying on the generosity of the public to help him fight the government. The site does not focus as strongly on the array of powerful Washington Republicans lined up to help Libby raise money, particularly the large number of star fundraisers who raised large amounts of money for the Bush-Cheney presidential campaigns. However, the site notes, the Libby defense fund will not publicly release the names of donors to the fund. The site does focus on what Dickerson calls “the soft Scooter sell.” It intends to “clean… up his image for the public, the press, and potential jurors. The Web site offers a page titled ‘What You Aren’t Hearing,’ with testimonials lined up like movie blurbs.” Possible Defense Strategy - And, Dickerson writes, the site offers hints as to what Libby’s defense strategy might be. If the site is accurate, the defense team intends to portray Libby as “a good guy” who, as former Republican congressman Vin Weber says in a testimonial, “is a tough, honorable, honest guy.” He has spent his adult life in “selfless,” and apparently almost penniless, service to his country, fighting for the American people and battling terrorism and other national security threats with every waking breath. He is a “perfectionist,” says former Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz. Libby just forgot about his knowledge of Plame Wilson’s CIA status, the site emphasizes, because he was too busy serving his country (see January 31, 2006). Former Bush Legislative Affairs Director Nick Calio is quoted as saying: “There are a lot of things that I don’t remember. I go through notes sometimes now and say I don’t even remember being in the meeting, let alone, you know, having said what I said.” Former Bush Solicitor General Theodore Olson adds, “From personal experience as a former public official who has been investigated by a special prosecutor, I know how easy it is not to be able to remember details of seemingly insignificant conversations.” Dickerson notes that the two arguments are somewhat contradictory. He writes, “Libby’s site has a hard time, because it simultaneously is trying to argue that a) he was likely to forget the Plame episodes and b) he was hypercompetent.” The site also spends a large amount of time and bandwidth attacking special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald. Seven of the 19 perspectives on Libby are criticisms of Fitzgerald, such as a statement by former Deputy Attorney General Victoria Toensing (see November 3, 2005) that the special counsel “has been investigating a very simple factual scenario and he’s missed this crucial fact.” [Slate, 2/27/2006] Toensing will engage in further criticism of Fitzgerald and the criminal case against Libby in op-eds (see February 18, 2007, February 18, 2007, and March 16, 2007).

According to progressive columnist and blogger Arianna Huffington, conservative MSNBC pundit Tucker Carlson is failing to inform his viewers and readers of his family’s connections to the Lewis Libby defense fund, even as he regularly defends Libby and criticizes his prosecution on his television show and on his blog. Carlson’s father, former Corporation for Public Broadcasting head Richard Carlson, is a heavy donor to the Libby defense fund and a member of the fund’s advisory committee (see After October 28, 2005). Tucker Carlson’s criticisms of special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald (see November 17, 2005) are prominently displayed on the defense fund’s Web site (see February 21, 2006). [Huffington Post, 2/28/2006]

Scott Shane. [Source: Charlie Rose (.com)]As the perjury and obstruction trial of former White House aide Lewis Libby gets underway (see January 16-23, 2007), the New York Times publishes a profile of Libby that paints him as a relatively nonpartisan figure with a keen intellect, a literary bent, and a driving interest in upholding the nation’s security. Most of the quotes used in the profile are from members of the Libby Legal Defense Trust (see After October 28, 2005 and February 21, 2006). The profile, written by Times reporter Scott Shane, emphasizes Libby’s complex nature, calling him “paradox[ical]” and contrasting his literary aspirations and buttoned-down demeanor with a fondness for tequila shooters and his use of his childhood nickname, “Scooter.” Shane lines up quotes from Libby’s friends and supporters who express their dismay at the charges he faces, and their disbelief that anyone could conceive of his involvement in any sort of criminal enterprise. “I don’t often use the word ‘incomprehensible,’ but this is incomprehensible to me,” says Dennis Ross, a foreign policy expert and the only Democrat on the Defense Trust board. “He’s a lawyer who’s as professional and competent as anyone I know. He’s a friend, and when he says he’s innocent, I believe him. I just can’t account for this case.” Shane writes that Libby’s friends and former colleagues consider the charges, and the conduct of special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald in prosecuting the case, both “unjust [and] a terrible irony.” Vice President Dick Cheney’s former communications adviser, Mary Matalin, says of Libby, “He’s going to be the poster boy for the criminalization of politics, and he’s not even political.” Matalin notes that Libby was often described as “Cheney’s Cheney,” an “absolutely salient translator” of the ideas and policy initiatives of Cheney, his former boss. But neoconservative Francis Fukuyama, who once worked with Libby in the State Department, says regardless of Libby’s closeness to Cheney, he is not a conservative ideologue. “He never struck me, even knowing him as I do, as an ideologue,” Fukuyama says. “I wouldn’t say I have a particularly good handle on his worldview.” In many ways, Shane notes, Libby was one of the driving forces behind the Iraq war. “Libby didn’t plan the war,” says historian John Prados, one of the few people quoted in the profile who are not close friends or political allies of the former White House aide. “But he did enable the administration to set out on that course. He was the facilitator.” Famed Washington attorney Leonard Garment, who headed a law firm Libby once worked for, calls Libby “reliable, immensely hard working, and guarded.” Garment once represented Richard Nixon during the Watergate investigation (see August 28, 1974). Libby’s friend Jackson Hogen, who describes himself as a liberal Democrat, says that Libby’s wife Harriet is also a Democrat. “She probably cancels his vote every four years,” Hogan says. “It’s a credit to Scooter that he can maintain a friend like me and a wife like her all these years.” Libby’s driving passion, say Matalin and other close friends and colleagues, is the security of the nation. “What animates him is security,” Matalin says. “On 9/12 [the day after the 9/11 attacks], there were but a handful of people who had the strategic grasp of terrorism that he did.” As a person, Hogen says that while Libby “puts up a tough front… there’s a kind human being in there who’s really gotten beat up in this affair.” Shane winds up his profile with a quote from liberal columnist Paul Andersen, who lunched with Libby last summer while Libby was vacationing in Colorado. “I got a feeling for him as a family man, a guy who likes the mountains,” Andersen recalls. “Later, it seemed like he was nursing some serious pain. It seemed a dreadful shame that circumstances can sometimes ruin lives.” [New York Times, 1/17/2007] Author and progressive blogger Marcy Wheeler is contemptuous of the Shane article, writing that it is almost obsequious in its regard for Libby, and notes that Shane’s “profile” of Libby is restricted to those who support him and raise money for his defense fund, including Ross, Fukuyama, and Matalin. Wheeler advises Shane, “[I]f you’re going to do a profile, base it on neutral observers.” Wheeler also speculates that Shane may even be trying to echo the defense’s talking points, observing that at the beginning of a trial that hinges on Libby’s divulging of a CIA official’s covert identity, Shane quotes several people who note how “reserved” Libby is, even quoting one as saying Libby is silent as “a tomb” on security matters. Shane, Wheeler notes, also hits on Libby’s “memory defense” (see January 31, 2006) by quoting several of his friends on his propensity for hard, intense work. [Marcy Wheeler, 1/17/2007]

Patrick Fitzgerald, who successfully prosecuted former Bush administraton official Lewis Libby for perjury, obstruction of justice, and making false statements (see March 6, 2007), recommends 30 to 37 months in prison for Libby’s jail sentence. In a court filing with Judge Reggie Walton, Fitzgerald notes that the Libby defense called Libby’s prosecution “unwarranted, unjust, and motivated by politics,” and Libby’s supporters (see February 21, 2006) continue to do so. Libby Chose to Lie - To address this charge, Fitzgerald goes back through the investigation and notes that Libby, a lawyer himself, fully understood his obligations as a government witness. “He, of course, could have told the truth, even if, as was the case for many other witnesses, doing so risked the possibility of criminal prosecution, or personal or political embarrassment,” Fitzgerald writes. “He also could have declined to speak to the FBI agents, invoked his Fifth Amendment rights before the grand jury, or challenged any lines of inquiry he believed improper. And the evidence at trial showed that Mr. Libby had access to counsel and had adequate time to review relevant documents and contemplate his conduct before he testified. Regrettably, Mr. Libby chose the one option that the law prohibited: he lied. He lied repeatedly to FBI agents and in sworn grand jury testimony, and he lied about multiple facts central to an assessment of his role in the disclosure of Ms. Wilson’s CIA employment. He lied about when he learned of [Valerie Plame Wilson’s] CIA employment, about how he learned of her CIA employment, about who he told of her CIA employment, and about what he said when he disclosed it. In short, Mr. Libby lied about nearly everything that mattered.” Libby’s choice to lie, Fitzgerald goes on to note, made it impossible to discover “the role that Mr. Libby and those with whom he worked played in the disclosure of Ms. Wilson’s information regarding CIA employment and about the motivations for their actions.… Mr. Libby’s lies corrupted a truth-seeking process with respect to an important investigation, and on behalf of which many others subordinated important public, professional, and personal interests. To minimize the seriousness of Mr. Libby’s conduct would deprecate the value that the judicial system places on the truthfulness of witnesses, and tempt future witnesses who face similar obligations to tell the truth to question the wisdom and necessity of doing so.” Fitzgerald notes that Libby “has expressed no remorse, no acceptance of responsibility, and no recognition that there is anything he should have done differently—either with respect to his false statements and testimony, or his role in providing reporters with classified information about Ms. Wilson’s affiliation with the CIA.” Justifies Libby's Prosecution when Other Leakers Not Prosecuted - Fitzgerald counters the arguments that because only Libby, and not all three proven leakers (see October 2, 2003 and February 2004), was prosecuted, his prosecution was somehow invalid. The other leakers, Richard Armitage and Karl Rove, eventually admitted to leaking Plame Wilson’s name to the press. Libby consistently lied about his leaks. “To accept the argument that Mr. Libby’s prosecution is the inappropriate product of an investigation that should have been closed at an early stage,” Fitzgerald writes, “one must accept the proposition that the investigation should have been closed after at least three high-ranking government officials were identified as having disclosed to reporters classified information about covert agent Valerie Wilson, where the account of one of them was directly contradicted by other witnesses, where there was reason to believe that some of the relevant activity may have been coordinated, and where there was an indication from Mr. Libby himself that his disclosures to the press may have been personally sanctioned by the vice president. To state this claim is to refute it. Peremptorily closing this investigation in the face of the information available at its early stages would have been a dereliction of duty, and would have afforded Mr. Libby and others preferential treatment not accorded to ordinary persons implicated in criminal investigations.” States that Prosecution Knew Plame Wilson Was Covert from Outset - Fitzgerald also says what he was unable to say directly in the trial, that “it was clear from very early in the investigation that Ms. Wilson qualified under the relevant statute… as a covert agent whose identity had been disclosed by public officials, including Mr. Libby, to the press.” Fitzgerald explains that he chose not to charge Libby with outing a covert intelligence agent in part because Libby’s lies, and presumably the obfuscatory and contradictory statements of other Bush administration officials, made it difficult to prove beyond doubt that Libby knew Plame Wilson was a covert agent when he exposed her as a CIA official. “On the other hand, there was clear proof of perjury and obstruction of justice which could be prosecuted in a relatively straightforward trial.” No Justification for Leniency - “In light of the foregoing,” Fitzgerald writes, “the assertions offered in mitigation are consistent with an effort by Mr. Libby’s supporters to shift blame away from Mr. Libby for his illegal conduct and onto those who investigated and prosecuted Mr. Libby for unexplained ‘political’ reasons (see March 6, 2007, March 6, 2007, March 6, 2007, March 6, 2007, March 7, 2007, March 7, 2007, March 7, 2007, March 8-9, 2007, March 9, 2007, and March 11, 2007). The assertions provide no basis for Mr. Libby to receive a reduced sentence.… While the disappointment of Mr. Libby’s friends and supporters is understandable, it is inappropriate to deride the judicial process as ‘politics at its worst’ on behalf of a defendant who, the evidence has established beyond a reasonable doubt, showed contempt for the judicial process when he obstructed justice by repeatedly lying under oath about material matters in a serious criminal investigation.… Mr. Libby’s prosecution was based not upon politics but upon his own conduct, as well as upon a principle fundamental to preserving our judicial system’s independence from politics: that any witness, whatever his political affiliation, whatever his views on any policy or national issue, whether he works in the White House or drives a truck to earn a living, must tell the truth when he raises his hand and takes an oath in a judicial proceeding or gives a statement to federal law enforcement officers. The judicial system has not corruptly mistreated Mr. Libby; Mr. Libby has been found by a jury of his peers to have corrupted the judicial system.” [US District Court for the District of Columbia, 5/30/2007]Sentenced to 30 Months in Prison - Libby will be sentenced to 30 months in prison (see June 5, 2007), but will have his sentence commuted before he serves any time (see July 2, 2007).

Friends of convicted felon Lewis Libby fear that when Judge Reggie Walton sentences Libby (see June 5, 2007), Libby will be sent directly to jail. A member of the Libby Legal Defense Trust (see February 21, 2006) says, “I think that he will get some jail time and probably be sent away that day.” [US News and World Report, 5/30/2007]

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